Last month we told you about the DMCA law that now affects unlocking your cell phone. We also explained pretty much what it means. This pertains to SIM-unlocking of your phone, and not unlocking the bootloader. Basically, DMCA protects the carriers software that they use to lock your phone to just their SIM cards. Now we also saw a petition for an official White House response regarding this topic. It’s been going strong, and has over 74k signatures already. But it still needs about 25,322 (at the time of writing this). So has everyone signed yet? The goal of 100,000 needs to be met by February 23rd, which is only a few days away.
Now this new law went into effect on January 26th, but nothing really changed with the law. You can still unlock your device, with carrier approval. Which is actually quite easier than most people expect it to be. You can call up your carrier and ask for an unlock code if you have a good reason. Like going out of the country and wanting to use your device outside of the US. You just need to be in good standing with your carrier, which means not being behind with your bill.
So if you haven’t yet signed the petition be sure to do so, especially if you want to be able to legally unlock your phone again. This law is going to really affect those companies and websites that can unlock your phone for you. They’ll be facing some jail time, and some pretty big fees as well.
How many of you have unlocked your phone? This new law might really jump start Google’s Nexus program and perhaps the X Phone? Because you’ll be able to get an unlocked phone pretty cheap, that will work on AT&T and T-Mobile, along with their MVNO’s (Mobile Virtual Network Operators, like Straight Talk, and Simple Mobile). Let us know in the comments below if you still want to unlock your phone.